ariel alba

Did you see The Paradise of Thorns? What did you think?

I also love GameBoys. Several times I have seen both seasons and the film, which in this case is not an edition of the episodes, but rather something new and substantial that deepens and gives coherence to the general story. This is one of these series that I watched before discovering MDL.
I share every one of your words regarding Anti Reset. Eternal Butler disappoints me. Generally, I write a review when the series has a positive impact on me. On this occasion I didn't even say a word to him.

The American sporting power is undoubted, but its superiority in the Olympic Games is inextricably linked to the sanctions against Russia, to preventing the participation of Russian athletes in these sporting events, using the excuse of an “invasion” of Ukraine, when in In truth, the Russians seek to protect their country, after the West violated the Mink Agreements and provoked a coup d'état in 2014, which made it possible for the Ukrainian Government and Army to The Nazi-fascists, followers of the Hitler nationalist Stepan Bandera, will install it.
At the same time, the directors of the Olympic Games maintain complicity with the genocidal Israeli State and the crime it commits against the Palestinians and other Arab peoples not since November 2022, but since 1948 when the UN, against the will of the Palestinians, divided Palestine to give part of that territory to the Israelis, who then began a campaign of colonization, looting and dispossession of Palestinian lands that continues to this day. We cannot forget that the military, financial and diplomatic aid to both the fascist regime of kyiv and the usurper and colonizing State of Tel Aviv by the government of Joe Biden cost him his re-election or prevented the victory of the Democratic candidate in the last elections in the United States.
Nor can we ignore the medals that Cuba, another sporting power with less than 11 million inhabitants, stops winning in the Olympic Games, due to the genocidal Yankee blockade, or the inclusion of that small but glorious Caribbean island in the spurious list of nations. supposedly sponsoring terrorism, which causes damage to their economy and negatively affects their sporting development.

I haven't seen many of the wuxia dramas you mentioned. I'll look for them and look. Story 3: Trapped Yes I saw years ago, when I had not discovered MDL. There are many series that I never reviewed because I had seen them before my arrival on this platform, and today they have dozens or hundreds of reviews. But I still write mine when I am very interested in the series, because I am interested in expressing my opinion about these audiovisuals at the risk of no one reading them.
I loved Blue Canvas of Youthful Days. Perfection. A gem.
I intend to see War of Faith, Killer and Healer and Nirvana In Fire, although I warn you that I am not a big fan of the genre. I liked the Taiwanese Anti Reset. Now a series is being broadcast, Eternal Butler, which follows in its footsteps, with the main cast of that one now as secondary characters, but I don't like it as much as Anti Reset.
I recommend Marahuyo Project. It escapes the low quality of other Filipino productions. Filipino movies and series attract me, although some of them disappoint me.

Hello. Thank you for your words. I have the same thoughts as you regarding Silent Sparks. Just two or three days ago I saw this film about two gay male Taiwanese gangsters. I couldn't help but write a review after watching it.
I have recently reviewed several Filipino films, some by filmmaker Crisaldo Pablo, a pioneer of what is known as guerrilla cinema. This man had to face censorship before, during and after filming. There is a series from last year, Filipino, Marahuyo Project, by JP Habac, highly recommended, whose creators also had to face censorship due to the topics addressed, which were not only those of homosexuality. But censorship not only comes from film and television authorities, but also from the Church, from economic and political power groups, from a heteronormative and patriarchal society. All of these creators deserve our respect and admiration. I'm not going to watch BL to see two guys kiss. I am much more interested in what is not said, the stories behind the cameras, and above all their support for the fight for the rights of LGBT+ people, to make this community visible.
There is a lot of Sinophobia from people who do not know, who are not informed, who are not interested in becoming informed and coming to think that there may be a reality different from how they perceive it.
Recently, for example, a boy bromance titled 'The Way Home' finished airing. Well, some people go there to talk about censorship and the elimination of BL content, when the series was never conceived as a series that explores love between boys. It is also not adapted from a BL novel. It is a bromance, a drama of youth and family growth, which had the original title 'I don't want to be brothers with you', due to the story of family breakdown that it tells.
Don't be so hard on the Chinese BL community who make these comments. I know that Chinese BLs may never fit the typical gay drama criteria for many. But they still tell really good stories and one should appreciate them. 'I'll Turn Back This Time' is one such example. I imagine many of these commentators getting angry watching a Chinese series with an effeminate boy telling another boy that he likes him, several queer boys gathered around a bottle that spins in the game of Truth or Dare, as we see in Thai series, Korean, Taiwanese... I imagine them getting angry when they see two boys in love holding hands, kissing and being affectionate on the Chinese streets, without anyone showing homophobia or worse, internalized homophobia, as shown this series.

The director may not know what is related to the two Churches and this will lead him to confuse some important elements about them (this is something taken by the hair when I express it this way, since there is always research work, advice before the script and production process and it is very doubtful that this process was violated, but it can be deliberately addressed), or perhaps the director, who is the same scriptwriter, wanted to merge the image of the two Churches to make a reality visible, or possible actually, inside.
The truth is that in Taiwan the Catholic Church is the most preeminent among the Christian Churches. In those dates prior to the approval of equal marriage, many politicians and congressmen were members of the Catholic Church, although perhaps they were not very practicing, and they voted in favor of the approval of the law.
I haven't seen Sonnet 18. I'll look it up to see it. If it motivates me I will write a review. I have many series and films that I want to review, and there is not much time.
Thank you for your words about my reviews. I will continue expressing my ideas through them.

By the way, I'm an atheist.

Hello. Your question is very interesting, which led me to watch the film again. I know well the use of the term Pastor in the Protestant Church, while the Catholic Church uses others, such as priest.
In Taiwan, 44% of the population belongs to ancient Chinese religions (Taoism, Confucianism) and 43% to Buddhism. There is another percent of so-called diffuse traditional religions. The group of Christians of the different confessions represents 4.5% of the population. According to data from 2023, the Island had 23,436,000 inhabitants, and of them only 232,000 were Catholics, that is, 1.03% of the population, according to statistics published by the Holy See. But this does not mean that they do not have a voice in society, because like other religions it is well-rooted with centuries of existence, since the arrival of six Spanish missionaries.
There is a very interesting detail in the film: one of the main characters wears the crucifix around his neck, that is, the cross with Christ crucified, a symbol that was and continues to be characteristic of the Catholic Church. The cross also adorns walls, tables, Bibles, etc. The songs they sing and those that make up the soundtrack, listed in the end credits, are related to the Catholic Church.
And it is well known that evangelicals do not make the sign of the cross, nor do they wear this symbol around their necks. According to the Evangelical Church, there is no clear biblical basis for it: Many believe that the biblical basis for the sign of the cross is weak. Although for some denominations it does not necessarily mean that making the sign of the cross is bad, but rather that it is not obligatory.
Icarus was filmed two years before the approval of Marriage Equality in Taiwan. At that time (also today) both the Catholic and Protestant Churches were campaigning to prevent this law from being approved, while supporters of same-sex marriage supported its approval and its signing. This reflected the divisions of a society with deeply held traditional family values.
The film makes common cause with supporters of equal marriage, bringing a homosexual couple into a church, in fact, one of the boys the son of the pastor or priest, and the other an active participant in it.

Your argumentssssssss are solid

There are those who choose to avoid a good, objective, ethical and sincere debate, with superficial questions.

I don't think I was rude. I don't think I have used a single rude or out of tone word, especially without meaning. I have only presented a vision different from that of others... a vision that evidently has not been able to refute.
The story of the user who responds to the name LUNA ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ falls apart with the very existence of this and hundreds of Chinese queer series, the existence of the Chinese queer film 'Queerpanorama', a co-production between China, Hong Kong and the United States, directed by Chinese filmmaker Jun Li, to be presented these days at the Berlinale, or with the development in China of two festivals that exhibit and reward queer films, such as the Shanghai Queer Film Festival and Beijing Love Queer Cinema Week. Don't you believe?
Don't you think there are clear political motivations rather than artistic ones when China is singled out for censoring television works, when this is an evil that corrodes all of humanity?

I remind you that this "debate", in quotes, because it is not, was started by you three days ago, when you tried to say something, but without knowing how or what to say. Good night.

Did you know that starting in 2022, the United States Department of Defense offers film producers access to military bases and loans of military equipment, but in exchange they obtain the right to demand script changes and, in some cases, add themes of conversation?
Did you know that it removes or minimizes references to sexism, racism, war crimes, PTSD, and veteran suicide and generally acts to portray the military in a positive light?
Did you know that some producers choose to forgo this cooperation and source military material or backdrops internally or on the private market?
Did you know that the production of some films depends on the studio's military approval for cost reasons?
Did you know that changes have included altering Tony Stark's character in Iron Man from being opposed to weaponizing his technology to becoming an arms dealer who sells it to the US military, and removing a reference to Godzilla's atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Did you know that the Central Intelligence Agency has similar agreements with some filmmakers?
I give you the sources, publicly accessible, so you can verify it: Steve Rose (May 26, 2022). "Top Gun for hire: why Hollywood is the US military's best wingman". The Guardian, and Roger Stahl (May 30, 2022). "Op-Ed: Why does the Pentagon give a helping hand to films like 'Top Gun'?" The LA Times.

When I said "Silent Sparks" wasn't Taiwanese?

Film Boards operate all over the world, not just in China, and often to censor gay films. I'm going to give you just one example, of the thousands that I can cite right now:
“PRIDE,” a British comedy-drama directed by Matthew Warchus about the collaboration between striking miners and gay and lesbian protesters, was rated R by none other than the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in the United States when it released film was released...
The MPAA even gave the Cannes film festival an R rating, meaning that no one under the age of 17 could legally watch the film without a parent or guardian.
Another example: the Film Boards of Hungary, Poland, Malaysia, Kuwait, Indonesia, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other West Asian nations, prohibit and censor those fictions that feature scenes where gay men, lesbian women or transgender characters express themselves with a kiss, a hug, a gesture, or even a few words, as occurs in the films 'Lightyear' (Pixar), 'Thor: love and thunder' (Marvel), 'Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous' (Netflix), 'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness', from Marvel, 'Eternals', 'West Side Story', and so many other films that include LGBT+ characters.

And don't you think it's superficial of you to state something so emphatically and then justify it with a timid "that's common knowledge about Chinese BL", especially when you can't even defend your position and refute my arguments with objectivity, as reflected in your response.
In fact, in my comment I do not question whether or not there is censorship in the Chinese media. That would require a much deeper analysis than “ask a Chinese” or if only the romantic relationship can be made visible through a bromance, when this is a genre used throughout the world, just as co-productions are global in scope.
Do we have to think that the romantic relationships between Chandler and Joey in “Friend”, Batman and Robin in “Batman The Movie”, Sherlock Holmes and his beloved Watson were censored in all the audiovisuals about this couple of detectives, House and his friend James Wilson in “Doctor House”, Troy and Abed, from the North American series “Community”, Pedro and Pablo in “The Flintstones”, Howard and Raj in “The Big Bang Theory”, Blake Shelton and Adam Levine in “The Voice”, Affleck and Damon, Riggs and Murtaugh, Ted, Marshall and Barney in “How I Met Your Mother”, and thousands of other examples and leave these relationships only in bromances?
Strict review process? Do you think it's only in China that such strict review processes exist? Aren't there film boards against which battles have to be fought thousands of times in order to film or exhibit films?
In the Philippines, for example, there is a government Film Board that if it grants a rating of Do you know that in the Philippines for a film to be shown in theaters it has to receive an R-18 rating or similar. Shall I share with you the list of Filipino gay films that will never see the light of day because they have obtained an X rating?

What I cannot explain, following your logic, is that actors, directors, cameramen, editors, scriptwriters, and even the one who brings them the coffee and the one who transports the artistic and technical casts would be violating laws, and they do not receive any punishment for this, because the next day they are involved in a new series, in a new film, and even presenting them at Chinese national festivals (Shanghai Queer Film Festival and Beijing Love Queer Cinema Week) and international festivals, such as the upcoming Berlinale in which will exhibit 'Queerpanorama', a co-production between China, Hong Kong and the United States, directed by Chinese filmmaker Jun Li.
Without going that far, Li Yi Mu and Kou Wei Long were a queer couple last year in a series Meet You at the Blossom. Whether or not it was shown in China, whether or not it used teams that work with international production companies, whether or not it was broadcast only internationally, there is a violation of laws (again, following your logic), and any law violated in Any place in the world has consequences, whether the content of said law is draconian or not, right? So, I don't understand how it is possible that there is no sanction against the supposed thousands of “law violators.”
You say that Chinese BL series are broadcast “through international production companies…”. I would like to know your opinion on how a Chinese company manages to sign agreements with third countries when both one party and the other (following your logic, I repeat) would know in advance that they are violating laws.
Here we are not talking about someone who sells Coca Cola in the yard of his house in a private business. We are talking about international agreements. Aren't these international agreements legal instruments?
Let's analyze just one element of the many that we could analyze: Copyright. How would copyright issues be agreed upon in a binding international legal agreement between two companies, one Chinese and the other from a third country, when there are violations of the laws of one of those countries, in this case China? How could the author or the owner of the economic rights (say, the producer, the director, the directors of the television channel, etc., ok? of the series) grant or authorize a third party to use or exploit the copyrights? economic rights regarding a work (in this case artistic or audiovisual, but it could be literary, or scientific... how should the legal text of any international agreement include when laws are violated?

Chinese queer cinema continues to amaze. In the Panorama section of the Berlinale, which will be held from February 13 to 23, he will present the film 'Queerpanorama', a co-production between China, Hong Kong and the United States, directed by filmmaker Jun Li, whose plot offers a sexually positive of identity theft.
It will also feature artistic portraits, identity dramas and genre hybrids, such as Ping Chu's Taiwanese gay gangster ballad 'Silent Sparks', Billy Shebar's 'Monk in Pieces' (explores the legacy of a queer artist), the seminal 'Looking for Langston' by Sir Isaac Julien along with its sequel, 'Once Again... ' (Statues Never Die), a film that reflects on life and friendship in Peter Hujar's Day, by Ira Sachs, among other films and documentaries.

It happens that I am a lover of good cinema and series. And among these is the Chinese one, and specifically the one with LGBT+ themes.

Despite not having been originally conceived to be exhibited and awarded, there is a global trend to exhibit series at International Film Festivals. Last December, for example, at the New Latin American Cinema Festival held every year in Havana, Cuba, the first episodes of the series One Hundred Years of Solitude and The Russian were world premiered.
Given the weight achieved by the series in the world's popular imagination, due to its high level of evaluation by critics, due to the prestige within the intellectual universe that they had never possessed before; because filmmakers such as the legendary American director Martin Scorsese (Vinyl), the New Zealander Jane Campion (Top of the Lake), the Korean Park Chan-wook (The Girl with the Drum) or the Italian Marco Bellocchio (Outside Night) began to film series; because Anglo-Saxon acting stars have also participated in important series, such as Frances McDormand (Olive Kitteridge); Kate Winslet (Mildred Pierce); Jeremy Irons (The Borgias); Liev Schreiber (Ray Donovan) or Brian Cox (Succession), the series were gradually inserted into film festivals.
Another example: Contempt, the series directed by the Mexican Alfonso Cuarón and starring the brilliant Cate Blanchett. Its first five episodes, because they are narrated visually with a strictly cinematic character, were shown four months ago at the Venice Festival. It was not the only series shown. In the city of canals they also exhibited New Years, a wonderful work by the Spanish Rodrigo Sorogoyen; and Families like ours, and M, the son of the century, directed respectively by the Danish Thomas Vinterberg and the British Joe Wright, all with important work in cinema.
All this preamble is to say that I just read that I'll Turn Back This Time has been selected to participate in the ShanghaiPRIDE Film Festival, a festival that was called Shanghai Queer Film Festival from its founding until 2016, when it changed to its current name. name, being the first LGBT+ pride festival instituted in China and second in importance in the Asian nation after the Beijing Love Queer Cinema Week (previously Beijing Queer Film Festival, since 2001).